


Cracked Mirrors

by alexiel_neesan



Category: DCU
Genre: Gen, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-07
Updated: 2010-04-07
Packaged: 2017-10-21 23:04:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/230839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexiel_neesan/pseuds/alexiel_neesan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>Dick has nightmares. It's just nightmares.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Cracked Mirrors

Dick wakes up, feeling like he just threw himself on the bed. When he checks the hour, it is the dead of night, even for them; it is the time when even Bruce is asleep and the manor creaks a bit with the night.

There is no way he is going to be able to go back to sleep now. His shirt is sticking to his back, and his scalp feels damp, and cold fear rolls in his guts. He suppresses the urge to check on the other current occupants of the manor. It would be pretty useless to wake them.

He goes down to the kitchen. When it happens at the Tower, it is where he goes; when it happens in Blüdhaven, it is where he goes too. Hot chocolate or water do not help in themselves, the familiarity and relative safety of the place does. Often, when there is someone in the room, it makes it easier to tuck everything back to their places and for his world to right itself back in shape. That he never dreamed of gruesome events happening in kitchens helps too.

At first, he had thought he had been hit with yet another version of Scarecrow's fear gas. But the antidotes and various bloodworks were useless and revealed nothing, he could not just ask Raven at the time and she did not detect anything weird when he did.

It's just nightmares. It comes and goes.

The counter gleams below the lights. The fridge purrs. There is a clock, but it makes no sound. He switches the TV on, turn the sound off. He does not care about what is on, he just needs the colors, the movement.

It had not been a bad night. It had been a rather quiet patrol in Gotham, then there was messing with Damian's head because there was no other way to interest him into working with them in a way they could all agree on despite Jason's suggestions. He had went back to the streets for a last sweep. He had seen Spoiler from afar, she had waved back at him. Robin and Batgirl were in Blüdhaven right now and would probably be staying there for a little while. Jay was on something with the Outsiders in New York, and Nightwing stayed as usual as far from it as he could but would come running if his brother asked. Batman had not needed him. His own leads had been quiet as graveyards. It had been a quiet night, until there.

Sometimes quiet nights are the worst.

It's just really weird, realistic, depressing nightmares showing and acting events from another him's point of view, events which never happened. He saw Tim falling apart and Dick was not there to pick up the pieces. He saw himself being used to murder Blockbuster and then just used. He saw Gotham crumbling to dust and being abandoned and rising back from her grave. He saw Jason, what was left of his body, being buried. He saw himself taking Damian as Robin over Tim, hurting Tim like Bruce had hurt him when he had taken Robin from him. He saw himself hurting Roy beyond forgiveness. He saw many things. They are not in chronological order. Sometimes they do not make sense. Or they make sense later, after a serie of others ones - like tonight.

He does not register that Clark is in the room until the larger man is seated in front of him on the other side of the counter. Dick does not even startle. It seems the little sleep he got took all the energy he had had to give. But when he raises his head, he sees the Clark he just saw over the Clark who is there now - _'it was the one he was wearing when it happened - we thought it should be here' and Tim at his back a compact mess and Alfred, oh Alfred 'My son has died'_ \- and he can feel between two heartbeats months of anguish and desperate hope and deadly cold resignation again. Months and events he only ever dreamed about, only ever saw through the eyes of someone he fears to become - no, it is not fear, not only. There is also shame, and disappointment, and being lost and this Dick he is not turned his back on everything that is him.

Clark's hand, on his. Dick blinks. Clark's hands are really large, and he gives off more heat than anyone else Dick knows. It had lead to some conversations with Jason and Tim -but mostly Jason- he wished he could manage to scrub clean from his head, the bottom line being that Bruce had to be cold-blooded to stand sleeping with Clark. Thinking about it makes him smile a little, now. It is there, it is real, there is nothing like this in the nightmares.

The nightmares paint a pretty bleak world. He does not like it.

"Dick? Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm just not dream-" Dick stops, pinches the bridge of his nose with his free hand. "Sleeping. Just not sleeping well."

Clark keeps his hand on Dick's. Dick lets him, fights down the urge to turn his palm and grasp the larger hand. It's just nightmares. It will fade.

Maybe.

"I...," Clark clears his throat. "I was told several times it helped to talk about it? If you want?"

Dick smiles, a little smile hiding a bit from the too bright lights over their heads, and turns his hand over.

"I'm all right, Clark, really. Just tired." He smiles a bit wider and tightens his hold a bit. "Thanks." He holds tight a bit longer.

Then he rubs his eyes with both hands, breaking contact. His shirt does not stick to his back so much anymore, his hair has stopped sticking to his face. Maybe he should cut it, one of this days. It threatens to reach what-the-hell-was-I-thinking ponytail length.  "Sorry I woke you up."

Clark waves the apology aside, "I was awake anyway."

"Then you probably woke Bruce up when you got off the bed," says Dick, and sure it does not miss, Clark blushes. How long has it been? And Clark still blushes and Bruce still sort of grunt. It is one of the actual real constant of his life with the sun rising and Alfred and Gotham's madness and Alfred's hot chocolate.

They stay there a little while. Dick's mug stops smoking at some point. The colors move on the TV. And the appliances still purr. Clark gets up, a final contact - "Goodnight" " 'night Clark".

Dick does not go back to bed.

He fights down the urge to climb back up and check on Bruce and inevitably wake him if Clark getting up did not woke him up already. The 'I had a nightmare' excuse sounds really too childish even to the confines of his own mind. He goes down, instead, to the gym in the 'cave, tries to find peace of mind in slow repeats of his routines - he was never good at staying still. The slow-healing bullets scars on his upper arm twinge, anchor him a bit more into the here and there.

He finally gives up on the gym, goes back up. The sun is barely rising. No-one is awake yet - or, no-one is out of bed yet. Dick showers, changes, decides to go to New York. The ride will help and he has not seen Jason in a while. If Roy is free today, he can swing by, and surprise Lian too.

It's just nightmares.

*  
end.  



End file.
